Victoria and I decided to make our own excursion and visit Havuts Tar Monastery. It’s in ruins, but I read that the view is great and it’s a short hike from Garni. We wanted to hike somewhere close to Yerevan, and this was on my list, so we decided to give it a try.

Azat River!

I wasn’t so sure about the logistics of hiking there because it’s located inside of Khosrov Forest State Reserve. It’s one of the oldest protected areas in the world, supposedly established by King Khosrov in the 330s. I think he just wanted something to name after himself. It was reestablished in its current form in 1958. There are four different landscapes within the park, ranging from desert to alpine meadow, and a ton of different plant and animal species. There are 41 mammal species!

You can see a little speck on top of the mountain in the background, right side… that’s Amenaprkich Church

If you follow the Khosrov website, visiting the park seems like a huge pain. It says that you have to hire a guide and get a permit if you want to hike in the park, and it’s a bit expensive. In all of the reviews I read, no one said anything about a guide. We figured we would go, try to visit, and be prepared for a last-minute change of plans if we weren’t allowed into the park.

The path

We took a marshrutka to Garni and walked from there. After some near wrong turns and helpful directions from locals, we found what looked like the trail and started hiking. Thank goodness for GPS because otherwise, who knows where we would have ended up? It seemed for a while like we weren’t going to encounter anyone… until we turned a corner and saw a huge gate with a Khosrov seal on it. Okay, showtime. Worst case, we’d get turned away and have to find something else to do. No big deal.

There was a park ranger sitting at the gate, and we said hello and told him that we wanted to see Havuts Tar. (We had practiced saying this on the walk so that we would sound like we knew what we were talking about.) He didn’t seem thrown off by our presence or our request and asked where we were from. We said Yerevan, and he told us that it’s 1000 dram to hike there if you’re from Yerevan and 2000 dram if you’re a foreigner, so lucky for us that we’re not foreigners because we get a better price. Pretty sure he winked at us when he said that.

We went into the little visitor’s center to pay, and they had a sign with pricing for all of the different sites within the park. To me, that seems to mean you don’t need a guide… Oh, who knows. Maybe it’s like some local secret that you can just walk in and they try to trick the internet users into getting a guide. I was surprised by how nice the visitor’s center was. They had posters about the different sites in the park, information about environmental preservation, a creepily impressive beetle collection, and best of all, a bathroom.

The path

Victoria and I paid our 1000 dram each and headed up the trail to the monastery. The hike wasn’t bad at all. There were some steep parts, but we were following a dirt car road, making it impossible to get lost. There were even a few shade trees along the way! That’s a rare sight on a hike here.

Getting closer…

Havuts Tar Monastic Complex was built between the 12th and 14th centuries, so in Armenia time, it’s new! There was an earthquake in 1679 that destroyed much of the complex, and after that, it was basically abandoned. There’s another church there as well, Amenaprkich Church, which was originally built in the 10th century.

View of the monastery complex from the hiking trail

The ruins were a pleasant surprise. Everything I read basically said that the monastery is unimpressive, but the view makes the trip worth it. I completely disagree with the first statement. It was beautiful!! The ruins were way more extensive than I expected. There were fortified walls, hidden underground rooms, and some of the best stone carvings I’ve seen in Armenia. As we wandered around, Victoria and I couldn’t help but express our disbelief at the fact that anyone would say that the monastery was anything less than awesome.

One of the church ruins with nice lettering carvings insideMe on a relatively stable wall…Looking out at the ruins from the wallI love these khatchkars!I’m sure this isn’t going to fall anytime soon… but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t sprint under it just in caseThat view!Entrance to one of the monastery complex churchesSome of the carvings were the most intricate I’ve seenEverything is decorated!This looks like an alien on a space horse capturing another alien, but that alien is smiling because he knows that there are twenty of his alien soldier friends on their way to save him.

This room is underground… they think it used to be the monastery’s library

The view certainly wasn’t anything to complain about either. It overlooks the Azat River Valley, the same one that runs behind Garni Temple, and the whole thing is pretty spectacular. From Amenaprkich, you can see Garni Temple too! We found a shady spot to eat our snacks (some bread, cheese, and cookies, courtesy of Victoria), chatted, and enjoyed the scenery.

Amenaprkich ChurchView from Amenaprkich ChurchMe and Victoria!

It’s always nice when a day turns out even better than you expect. I was worried that we wouldn’t even be able to enter the park and I would have dragged Victoria out there for no reason. Far from that, we had a great time! Havuts Tar is pretty close to the top of my list of favorite places to visit in Armenia, along with Dilijan, Levon’s Divine Underground, and Smbataberd. I think my list of favorite places is slightly more obscure than most people’s…